461. Untitled Shifting Baselines Syndrome + Information Overload Fiction Story

As usual, when I am exposed with too many stimuli for my brain to handle, it starts to collapse, cave in, and invent a bunch of novel, whacko story ideas... I just finished the first round final draft of The Mountain's Last Flower, and my mind is hunting for novel storyline structures, and most recently since I had accomplished my dream of finally meeting... and surf filming... and eating Mexican food with... my science-film-maker hero Dr. Randy Olson (for Roadtrip Nation), and since two nights ago I lost sleep because I finally watched "What the Bleep Do We Know?!!" after about 31 people independently told me to watch that film (including my first film production instructor Michael Hanrahan, interviewed writer-director Betsy Chasse in Washington yesterday for Roadtrip Nation)... so now I am in this ultimate, ape-chest-beating-ego-maniac mood of hunting and crafting the most radical storyline involving the Shifting Baselines Syndrome, in a more generic definition meaning: the structure and end result of your story is a product of its original premises (its boundaries in space, and time, and units of organization, that being one or several lines of data collection, either numerial, or the point of view(s) of a specific character). In a more simple definition, humans "forget" and disconnect in their ability to coordinate in space and in time. Humans have one ability to do well: transmit stories mostly in the symbolic language form, and incorporate this language into individuals memoiric repertoire. Two lines of information that humans are NOT well able to transmit are (1) visual/cognitive maps (2) emotions. So for example, I take a United States history class. I memorize the entire textbook like the Bible for my National Standard exams. BUT, I have no emotional affinity to any of the dead dudes, e.g. Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, etcetera, except for the ones that are alive or recently gone (Nixon, that grrrr... Reagan, that grrrr..., Bush that grrrr..., Clinton, eh? whatever cool enough) In addition, I really don't have much of a visual history of America in my mind whatsoever... except for VERY SMALL FRAGMENTS. A few cool images in the textbook, plus I watched that "Glory" civil war film with some hot dude in there that all 13-year old girls would get a hormonal kick out of. So... this FILM actually implanted emotions and some sense of visual experience of history, and suddenly my ability to remember has been heightened... ahemmm... interesting.... And the worst part about History Courses is that they focus on people in power and great wars and debates and inventions and plagues and blood and gore, etcetera. They don't focus too much on the lives and worlds of the common folk, and they ESPECIALLY DON'T FOCUS ON ECOLOGICAL HISTORY, how landscapes have changed and how humans have interacted with these landscapes. SO, OUR COLLECTIVE AMERICAN ECOLOGICAL HISTORY IS LIKE A GHOST and scientists are currently working on trying to collect data and work with historians, anthropologiss, and geologists to figure out a major gap in how we know and perceive history. Go Jared Diamond! Woohoo!

So, here ya go. A major problem in the entirety of the humanity. The ability to tell language-oriented stories without transmitting visual, nor emotional continuity amongst each other and to the next generation... except through films. And since Hollywood has become victim of a sell-sell-sell-your-soul capitalist system with exceptional technological capabilities, any form of emotions left in any human being has been desensitized and beaten out due to overexposure and information overload. EMOTIONAL DESENSITIZATION.... So now we have THE SHIFTING BASELINE SYNDROME + INFORMATION OVERLOAD. The speed of technology increasing the speed of the average human life to the point of being almost in a liquid state does not help in processing nor passing visual and emotional connectivity.

Having all this being said, how do I take this fundamental shifting baseline syndrome + information overload problem and package it in a thrilling, enticing, paradoxically hypocritically ironic storyline that would grab anyone's attention, from the drooling five year old kid to the bratty teenybopper to the skeptical academic to the cynical ol' hoagie next door?

AHA AHA AHA! PACKAGE THESE FUNDAMENTAL FLAWS OF HUMANITY INTO A SCIENCE FICTION STORY IN WHICH THIS "SHIFTING BASELINES DISEASE" HUMANS HAS BECOME THE PREMISE FOR THE FATAL FLAW OF AN ALIEN ECOSIOCRACY!!! SEE?! SEE?! NOW WE'RE GETTING SOMEWHERE....

I was telling my sister JenJen about the storyline in the car. Same for my cousin-aunt Jeri Lyn. It all started when I told my dad I wanted to write a short story (which end up being novellas) about the Shifting Baseline Syndrome. And then I had this conversation today with Jeri Lyn, who has been spending a LOT of effort in scanning old slides of our family (the Minnich family) and I told her that these never-seen-before photographs have really been opening my eyes and mean a lot to me. I told her that I have several files detailing family history information--particularly the timeline of my grandfather Ray, and that this information means so much to me that I like to use this information as the personal backbone and/or cartilage for the stories that I write. And then I told Jenny about this poem I wrote called "Two Generations Removed from the Land" detailing my relationship with my father and my grandfather, and how we all had this deep-rooted attachment to our environment/surroundings, but how it shifted and transcended over time (from farmer/geologist/adventurer to ecologist/climatologist/geologist/adventurer to still scientist/artist/political involvement) (my poetry professor Barry Spacks liked this poem in particular, so it gives me a little confidence umpity umph).

And then I told Jenny that I need to write this Shifting Baseline Story that has to be cross-generational, three generations, and it what has to be at stake is an environmental problem. But the setting would be a strange micro-earth-like-plane with aliens that are insect like, but are actually human derivatives (as displayed by their level of "intelligence"). I was thinking maybe it would be more like an asteroid belt that was just at the right point in which water could form and coagulate and essentially moss and weird biological scum was growing all over these fragmented asteroids. I'm not sure yet. But anyhow, there is this population of insect like-exo-skeleton-shaped creatures that have a very strong mutualist-oriented ecosiocracy (aka "society) on one of the largest asteroids and they had been able to co-exist together on the asteroid for hundreds, unaccountable as the story goes, but perhaps there was some kind of disease that went through the population and shrunk it to incredibly low numbers, such that certain individuals with certain mutational traits accidentally became prevalent. The trait was that they could communicate through symbols but could no longer successfully transmit visual nor emotional information, and so individuals could construct their own visual maps of the world and generate their own information, they had very poor ability to transmit visuals-emotions to others. Their symbolic language allowed them to pass on a vague sketchy history to the next generation and among their peers just to keep the ecosiocracy up and running, marginally running by unquestioned linear protocols in the passed on books, but without much nonlinear visionary history and projection into the future (kind of like American Culture minus Obama and my dad and me and a few other people as of right now). But then what happened is that amidst this collapsed, but then now expanding society (in which three generations typically live all at the same time, one around 30 "years" (for now, I'll change time units later), 60 years, and 90 years (then one passes on and the youngest reproduces aparthogenetically? (bad word, parthogenesis? what's that word? lemme consult an invertebrate zoology book). I like this cross-generationality stuff. It reminds me of the whole Alien movie series! So, all these creatures with this expanding mutation passed around (no external factors at the time to account for this "fatal flaw") are ultimately left-appendaged and right-brain dominant (I am reversing the roles of right and left handed so people pay attention).

But then what happens over time is that there is some UNDEFINED ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEM (OR SUITE OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS) that the alien society is creating for themselves on this habitable macro-asteroid through their expanding population that can only be "perceived" as a problem from a cross generational perspective because the onset of the problem is so slow and creeping from a single generations point of view. So, THERE IS THIS CUMULATIVE CROSS GENERAITONAL MUTATIONAL TRAIT THAT IS SETTING UP A POPULATION TO WIPE ITSELF OUT. THIS IS SOOO COOL!!! But when what happens is that amidst this still rather small population, another REVERSAL MUTATION HAPPENS within one character, and the onset of the disease to collapse the existing larger population, THIS MAN HAD SOME REGRESSIONAL ABILITY TO TAP INTO THE GHOSTS OF THE PAST, the emotional and visual information carried on from the ancestrally sustainable society. But the disease had distorted the memory of the past, and the man had to learn more of the history through the symbology left behind, amplifying his memories form lower vague resolution (Monety) to higher resolution, but never got very high. The collective emotion of the plague is extremely painful for one person to tap into, so he mostly blocked out visual-emotional continuity from the past and started gaining high resolution in his own life. Then he had a family and gave birth to a few kids. His son acquired the same mutation except his son close to when he was born was rapidly garnering the symbolic, visual, and emotional map of his father and integrated / interweaved his experiences very tightly with his father's. Both father and son had professions very closely tied with the nature of the asteroid, and they were in the fringes of the grid of the major dense population of their alien kind. And then the son made a family and had a daughter who passed on the gene, and so the daughter, as soon as she was born, was acquiring and synthesizing the collective visual-emotional-symbolic maps of her grandfather and father, in very high resolution, and she intertwined this regressive continuity with her present experiences. The grandfather gained experiences from the son and granddaughter, and the father gained continuity from his father and daughter. All three of them were the only right handed people in a left-handed-dominated society. Very frustrating logistcally. No one in the society thought much of it. It was the most intensive threesome of exchanged in which all three had a continual interweaving mental map of three lives (lots of information) that spanned 100 years, in which most all the others had mental maps (or memoiric movies of the landscape and people) for just 30 years. 30 years began decay of memory to a point of 60 years become a linear machine and 90 years a veteran living vegetable to keep around for the kids marginal comfort. (For some reason right now I am picturing this Dark City kind of landscape).

Now that I have complexingly set up this whole scenario in which this mutant lineage has regressional abilities back 100+ years, and gives them much foresight progressionability much farther than the typical 30-year linear mutational type. So what happens is that all this time, in the 100 year expansion of this society, the grandfather, the father, and the daughter start to detect a most noticeable creepingly slow environmental problem that would ultimately lead to the doom of the society on this particular asteroid. At that point, the technology was rudimentary but still feasible enough to escape to isolation in another asteroid, but fundamentally these are mutual, sociable creatures. The issue is, though the past society was sustaining its existence on the asteroid, and though it left its instruction manuals for how to run the society, there were missing instruction manuals, and certain individuals with certain roleplays had to whimsically invent protocols on the spot to fill in for missing information. Some of these whimsical protocols ended up being "bad habits," expanding and spreading around, to like some kind of malignant tumor of society structure (much like the Office of Budget and Planning of UC Santa Barbara, given their caniving developments violating certain environmental codes). The "bad habits" may go around the notion of my father's Smokey the Bear fire suppression scenario, and this mutant lineage of three somehow saw the gradual negative shift of landscapes (requiring scientific, investigative scrutiny) that called to urgent attention in terms of leading to a massive wipeout conflagration (figurative or literal). The threesome had this INTERNAL ABILITY to be like GIS / GPS units in their heads and reconstruct movies of shifting landscapes in any point of the land where all three had been in the past, combined with struggling to input outsider information--translating existing symbolic code into visual and emotional continuity. The grandfather was quite old and could not do much physically, but the father and daughter came to realize within a matter of their own lifespan the wipeout would occur, and at first they decided to testify to the leaders of the society, without much luck because everyone has fallen into their rut, and it was very difficult to change people's habits. And then the threesome plus their more convinced family considered escaping with a rudimentary space-travel ship to another distant colony of aliens the grandfather had an echo memory of.... But then the daughter had this great idea, realizing that talking to these other parts of the colony was useless because their chit chat was sloppy and meaningless to them 20% direct visual and emotional meaning so most 80% of the symbols was filler chatter to nothingness. While the father and grandfather were making arrangements to fly to another asteroid, renovating the spaceship with technologically savvy relatives, the daughter was adamant and decided to make all the knowledge that all three of them had in their minds externalized into a visual and musically emotional, three-dimensional story in the art gallery, which is rarely used anymore, since most of the alienst are technically linear. And through this cinematic art display she was trying to show everyone the concern and allow them to simply see what the lineage of three could see.... an expanding technocratic society was losing its ability to transmit visually and emotionally... and everyone was so overwhelmed by this means of expression that they were shocked. The question is as to whether the story was compelling enough for the mutualist ecosiocracy to change its course of action, and whether the mutational lineage of three ultimately had to escape to the plan B faint echo fo another potential society on an asteroid. Post New York destructive universe like "I am Legend" with Will Smith.

The question is, what in the hxll do I call a story like this?! I NEED A TITLE!!!

Well, all y'all people out there gonna take this idea, go ahead and be my guest! It took a while for my mind to wrap around this idea. Imagine anyone else's head. I'm not to concerned about anyone stealing my ideas. All the better! I'd like to consider it SHARING!

Notes: Perceptual/Emotional Discontinuity across generations, vertically and horizontally, the only history remained in the landscapes, no one synthesized too much they were very linear, through the remains, the grandfather had to figure out the history of the past society and their ways of doing things to figure out the missing protocols in the failing operations of the society. I told my sister that environmental problems are fundamentally social problems and political problems. Given that, writing nonfiction narrative is walking a fine line of things. If I want to illustrate a universal concept, I would rather like to portray this concept in an adventurous fiction story, because not only I am sharing a concept or a structure, I am actually APPLYING the concept to a specific narrative! And I can write freely because I disguise reality into really dense, juicy fiction. AHA! I like it. I JUST STARTED THINKING ABOUT THE TRUMAN SHOW BUBBLE EFFECT AND THAT CHANCE GARDNER MOVIE. I THINK THAT ALSO NEEDS TO BE INCORPORATED INTO THE FILM. THERE IS AN EXPANDED TRUMAN SHOW BUBBLE AROUND THE MUTATED LINEAGE AND THE BUBBLE AROUND THE OTHER MUTATED PEOPLE WITHOUT TRANSCENDENT COLLECTIVE MEMORIES IS MUCH SMALLER AND MUCH MORE CHOPPY, MESSY, FRAGMENTED, PIECEMEALED, AS IF THEY WERE SURROUNDED BY SOME TANGLED BALL OF SNIPPED UP PARTLY ERASED YARN OR RUBBER BANDS.

Flock of the Dodos: Written and Directed by Randy Olson, Scientist Gone Film-maker, THE WEEK IN REVIEW

There is nothing like the sense of "completion" and coming together. How so? I was missing two sheets of paper last week: one sheet describing the Green Screen project and grading, the other sheet describing the weekly "reading logs" in which the undergrads of the course must critique the readings from the "green book." That was subliminally bothering me, to a point that I called Cheryl Chen last Wednesday asking her what those sheets were about. I usually don't like bugging people. I even dropped by Scott Bull's office to get Cheryl's number. Subliminal haunting number ONE, solved. Subliminal haunting number TWO: that being getting 596 units with Dr. Walker for the course. It had been a long discourse, which lasted for over a week. It started last Wednesday, never ended, and finally resolved yesterday during office hours, and after the Inconvenient Truth. At one point, Dr. Walker asked to deal with it tomorrow, and I told her that it would be nice if I could sleep better tonight (finally, today I received the add code from Melanie Miners), and so we took care of things then. One way or another, I am responsible for 12 pages of traditional "scholarly" writing (I'm not used to being it called "scholarly," moreso "scientific"), and basically "scholarly" writing in the social sciences and the humanities takes in the form of my essays from Miss Flory back in the 7th grade (flashback to my A+ for aggrandizing her frequently pooping toucan bird). That was the first time Miss Flory recognized that I had the ability to write. And we were in good terms for the rest of the year (despite the B+ first "trimester"). So, the point is: you have a central thesis. Then you dissect the thesis into several supporting subtheses (say, three points), and then which each subthesis, you have several lines of evidence to back up the statement (e.g. three forms of evidence to back up the statement), so in science we would collect masses and masses of numbers and data points to support our hypo-theses and our predictions (subtheses), but I guess in social sciences, it's only 3-5 lines of evidence. I shrug my shoulders. Why is it this way? Don't ask. It simply is. Dr. Walker didn't want all my projects to be "free-associative" (inventing new writing structures, creating new theories without citing lots of papers), but I told Dr. Walker that my writing in Question Reality is based on casual conversations with scientists. I cite them through "interview" just like Al Gore. Not necessarily through literature. Well, 12-pages of a longer essay it shall be. I'll be a bit more rigorously citational in twelve pages.

I guess "scholarly" is defined as play the hyper-association game with peer-reviewed, highly cited references. Compare "what you think" with what "everyone else thinks." And that's how things build.... But it's soo slow, this process. And my mind makes up things sooo FAST... I told Dr. Walker that I have two phases: I belch out creatively and invent my own structures. Then I calm down and take my creative belches and adopt them to whatever writing structure that needs to be adopted to.

Subliminal haunting number THREE: meeting and connecting with the Green Screen participants of the Goleta Beach project. I mean, I have been stressed out since the beginning of school, ever since I found out that I missed out on the Green Screen party/gathering because I wasn't informed by email. Yuck. But today was good. I finally met several players in the film around 11am Wednesday morning at the digital editing lab. Some familiar faces: Nicole Star---ski (sorry, don't remember), Ryan Bowles (editing guru). And the key new players I was able to meet was "el heffe" of the project--Lauren Wilson--who has a most agreeable, open, welcoming, supportive personality and pro-active attitude, I am already motivated and excited to work with her and the project--and Alexios Monopolis (mispelled?)--the "greekislander" email that Vic picked up a month ago. I finally broke ice with Alexios toward the end of the meeting and told him that I was the one who sent him an odd-ball email over a month ago about his situation in grad school with Bren, because I'm trying to transfer. Alexios is very athletic, and based his attire, I take it he was a soccer player for Dartmouth college. He speaks fast and in a hyper tone (but he may be hyper because he just came from the big Jacksonhole-Wyoming International Wildlife Film Festival). And he has a New Englandish hybrid accent such that it tremendously reminds me of Kuba (I think he's still at Harvard). I am glad he said he would be able to meet with me. I found out he's doing a "double" MFA in arts and a Bren Ph.D, which is gnarly shxt (in a good way), though he's right handed, which is cool. So I'm relieved, because he can send me in the right direction of things. It's rare enough to find a scientist who is also superb in art.

There is a comical, scripted movie going on about the development of Gaviota Coast, and I wanted to applaud the writer (Steven Ray Morris) for his good work (though he is missing key elements, such as the shifting baseline effect in development, a.k.a. "creeping development"), but since I initiated script writing and helped contribute to the script and already did a Goleta Beach photoshoot, what can I say? I'm pretty deeply "rooted" in this project, and the best part is I found out today that there are lots of things unresolved (such as stylistic effects, e.g. tripod or hand-held) and a little bit of a slow start in general. So, there's still lots of flexibility in terms of how the movie can look like, and what can be done.

So, anyhoo. Three stressful subliminalities now delt with. Those things are done, but as usual, I'm in a huge rabbit hole, so as soon as I elminate some stresses, more stresses creep or crash back into the "top of the line" of priorities of my pre-frontal cortex.

Okay, as for this week, what's happening? What happened. I will say briefly, I was a bit "understimulated" and depressed on Monday and Tuesday, because Monday Dr. Walker went over a lecture that was review for me from Blue Horizons: "Define Documentary." I chose not to participate because over the summer I had a huge mouth about it. But what I did tell Dr. Walker (on the second time around) that I am creating this "Matrix" of parameters, called "photoshopping the definition of documentary," where to "classify" a movie as a documentary or moreso fiction, that you have to manipulate "where along the gradient" does the movie lie in terms of a particular element. E.g. Was the movie free-filming, staged, or scripted? (from highest degree of freedom to highest degree of constraint) E.g. Were the people "real" and "in situ" or were they "actors"? E.g. Was it the "real setting" or was it an "animated simulation"? And most importantly, "was the film-maker's goal to portray Reality or Fiction?" or "Reality with a more specific message?" And then you have to look through all the factors and all gradients, and then do a PCA analysis (principle components analysis) to assess the degree of realism and degree of fictionalism the movie held, and then see whether it's good to label a movie as "documentary." Because I think the existing 3-part classification of documentary (as opposed to WHAT OTHER classifications? "I can only know what a documentary is, given that I know what a documentary cannot be.") Monday was also good because I bonded with the "Back Invaders" of class--those students who occupy the plentiful open space of the back of class--most importantly Sean and Aimee. We can cover each other's xsses just in case we miss class.

Tuesday is the day I talked with Dr. Walker before and after class, in addition to watching the Inconvenient Truth for the THIRD TIME. Somehow I didn't shoot myself. I started to feel sad in class, simply because I am in a classroom and not experiencing anything in the outdoors to bring into class. So starting up with some shooting for Goleta Beach is cheering me up A LOT, so I can bring real-world experience to a class loaded with information. I am not going to talk about Inconvenient Truth right now, because I could rattle on about that movie for quite a while... not to mention that a whole bunch of science-media programs are blossoming all over the country due to this movie, including Blue Horizons. I owe Al Gore my respects. I hope one day I can meet him in person and shake his had--say thanks for opening doors for me in my education that would have otherwise NOT existed.

LEAVE OFF FOR A LATER TIME. A RANTING ABOUT AL GORE AND AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH. One tidbit that struck me in class today: Al Gore has two generations of politicians in his family. Davis Guggenheim has two generations of documentary film-makers in his family. Al Gore Senior knew Guggenheim Senior, so I guess maybe Al Gore Junior and Davis Guggenheim were little kids playing together. Just like how Ray, Bub, and I have three generations of California ecology. I think such multi-generational effects creates a level of how to carry on the legacy of your parents, in addition to "how to break outside the box" of your parents. Al Gore went from politician to scientist side. And Vic is going from scientist side to treating human policy as science... So in traditional definitions, Vic is going toward a political realm with a very twisted perception of what policy is: a scientific experiment with humans being the guinea pigs inside the ratbox.

Well, today in class Dr. Walker went over An Inconvenient Truth, and a few terms (e.g. "self-reflexivity" and "interactivity") that describe techniques used to make the movie "successful." I honestly don't know what the term "romantic" means when they say this movie IS romantic. Honestly, everything from Hollywood IS romanticized. (In the back of my head, I hope Al Gore comes to UCSB or Santa Barbara sometime soon. The best part about Santa Barbara is that when you invite a guest speaker out here, it's VERY HARD to decline because even if they could pass another guest-talk, you can't exactly pass up a Santa Barbara utopia of climate and environment and people. Same with Dr. Steven Pinker.) Hmmm. I feel awkward calling Al Gore "Honorable." What kind of intro is that? I would rather just call him Dr. Gore, though he may not have a Ph.D., he very well deserves one.

In terms of the knowledge regimes of "film studies professors," I am slowly figuring out "what they know and what they don't know," and where I fit in, and am extending. For example, today when Dr. Walker discussed An Inconvenient Truth, she barely touched on the science, except for saying that it was highly visual and aesthetic (for me, was like an "art showcase for science" an art installation that I would love to do, and am planning to). She made note that she is not in the position to critique the science (where I fit in), but then went to look at techniques of movie-making. She focused on style, not content. So, then, Dr. Walker and Dr. Szaloky keep referring to Kant's essay on "aesthetics, beauty, sublime" (three frequently used words) in addition to a new philosophy essay by a female British philosopher who wrote a book called "what is nature" and explores the defintions and origins of these definitions and viewpoints. Separatist "versus" as man versus nature, or Integrist man as a part of and interacting with nature (honestly, the word "nature" and "culture" is SO bad it's like worse than cus words like fxck and bxtch, I feel like spitting every time I use those words). I went to Dr. Szaloky after class to ask her what her definition of aesthetics/beauty/sublime were, just to refresh and clarify. And I realized at that moment, to screw what Kant thinks. What matters in this course is "what Dr. Szaloky thinks what Kant thinks," because ultimately I have to communicate with the profs, not some dead guy who has his writing kept around and referred to by people to this day. So, in the eyes of Dr. Szaloky (I still probably am getting this wrong), she thinks that Kant thinks that there is this realm of "aesthetics" of a human's response to his or her environment. Under the umbrella of "aesthetics" there is "beauty" and "beautiful," which an object in one's environment can be tagged if one's pleasure center is stimulated just by its present (so, you are at this point emotionally stimulated but no rational thought). Beauty is a pleasure-center stimulation of the object itself with no further development. An object becomes "sublime" if that object (whether present or becoming a state of "abstract concept") becomes dissociated from the tangible reality of the object of "beauty" and the human mind creates this fractal branching network of intellectual thought and imagination and "trance enlightenment" all revolving around that object itself. But sublime is all a construct in the human mind, but beauty refers to a primitive mammalian pleasure center response to the object itself. It's almost as if Kant literally dissected these these two neurological programs in our minds. Good job, dude. You probably didn't even have to physically dissect a human brain to figure it out. Just enough self-introspection can do it :-). So, there, I think I understand.

This is a later add-in. When I was 11 year old, I stared at the paintings of Christian Riese Lassen. I enjoyed them for the sake of "beauty" itself, for I was a stupid kid back then who knew jack about the ocean and marine life. I developed a pleasure-center association with his images without extrapolating beyond that. I had close to no cerebral cortex development at that point. But now, I have constructed the ideas of "evolution of art" such that I have established a level of neurological association and construction beyond this primal pleasure-center stimulation of Lassen art. That, I do believe, in terms of extrapolating beyond the tangible entity into abstract concepts in my mind, and association with grander viewpoints... I guess over time I have transformed Lassen's art in my mind from "beauty" to "sublime." So... this is how I understand these terms now... This was entered November 23, 2007.

But you see. Here I go. I am analyzing dead guys' philosophical essays and I am teasing apart their own neurobiology of enlightenment. When you analyze a movie and just go based on the notion of aesthetics, sublime, those assumptions to me are SHALLOW, as shallow as Hollywood itself. It's surface value judgement, to me at least. So, as I told Dr. Walker before. We can't just stop at aesthetics, beauty, sublime. We, or at least I--as a biologist with a huge streak of evolutionary psychology personality in me--we as biologists have to ask why do certain images or elements of our environment come off as "aesthetic" as opposed to other elements as "repulsive. What is the biological basis of perception of human attraction and repulsion towards elements of one's environment? What elements of composition of an image that the human mind has "hyperfocus" over other elements of the environment? So... digging deeper in the biological realm of things...

I couldn't wait for the QandA component of Inconvenient Truth. I think the course is skewed towards consuming knowledge than equal feedback and exchange of ideas. It's like 5 hours of lecture and movies, and only a 15 minute question-answer session where students get to voice their thoughts... That is a bit skewed. Many people were cool with the movie, and the most imporant thing is that Al Gore "broke outside the box" for scientists, because he is a politician deeply tied with science in his experiences. A point that I made in class is that Al Gore was so eloquent and clear and very selective with his choice of words, and there was a lack of confusion in anything presented--WHY? BECAUSE AL GORE NEVER USED THE WORDS NATURE OR CULTURE! He talked about humans and environments. Bingo. Vic's type of talk.

And the other most dangerous component of global warming is that it is a DANGEROUS BLAME-ALL ECOLOGICAL GHOST due to the level of "intangibility" of climate, in addition to its ENVIRONMENTAL RELIGION properties, where it's a HYPERASSOCIATION PIGEONHOLE where you can blame nearly everything on global warming, which then masks and distorts thorough regional analysis of issues, which may be related to OTHER MORE RELEVANT ISSUES other than global warming (e.g. development patterns, erosion, landslide patterns, fire ecology), and then global warming taints politics because it is a MONOPOLIZED AGENDA for university research funding, so scientists purposely go through this association game of their pet pea hypothesis with global warming simply to APPLY and GET funding. Science becomes tainted because people are CHASING GRANT FUNDING and not making associations in pursuit of TRUTH. Hence my thesis "what's the point?" because science is the pursuit of individual truth under consensus and trial of others, and this pursuit of truth is now being so skewed and tainted by the bureacracy surrounded by science.

There are several other problems coming to think about it, but such is the quibbling of a scientist who has worn this scientist hat since she was a little twirp, playing in the hallways of UC Riverside's Earth Science Department. You have to take a step back, and remember that few people experience the lifestyle of a scientist, and that all this they are exposed to is all new and shocking and convincing to them. And it's beside the point for all science to be true and accurate because science undergoes constant change and revision, so the moment Al Gore gives a talk... is the moment that some of the work he presents is already out of date.

Due to the large size of the class, everytime there is a lecture with QandA, I make a point to ask AT LEAST ONE QUESTION, and say something that is INSIGHTFUL and challenging. So, at one point, there was a guy in the back of class who said that everything made sense in the movies except for Al Gore's griping after losing the elections in 2000 to George Bush. "There was a level of disconnect." And after that, my hand shot up close to the speed of light because (1) I had something to say and (2) it was unique, thouhtful, and challenging. I was the second to last person to talk, and finally I was called on (I'm in the back, remember?). I talked very confidently and loudly, not exactly in these words (but you'll get the gist): "I'm responding to the commentary on how there is a level of disconnect between the entire movie and Al Gore's presentation of his failure in being elected in 2000." Here are the points below:

This blog remains unfinished....

Vic the Scientist is Speaking English, and Film Studies Department is Speaking Spanish (or Visa Versa)

Swimming in the chaos of existing philosophy and social theory. Man, did I feel it today. That is why I enter the Humanities and Social Sciences "Fluffology" centers of the university with my head screwed on tight: viewing humans and their constructs (human ecosystems) as a leaf-cutter ant system. As encrusting networks of bryozoans. Like bacterial scum encrusting planet Earth. Humans are ecological, biological, resource-acquiring-excreting, fornicating-replicating beings. So, my head is screwed on--or partly so. And swimming in the chaos of social theory, I can quickly grab the mental jewels and scrap the bullshxt.

Okay, department hopping to the film-studies department today was like a trip to Baja California. It's not as bad as hopping from United States to Greece to China. Not that bad, but it felt like it. Two or three leaf-cutter ants trying to put out their feelers and talk but not so successfully. I can't help to think about Waking Life and how the movie maker cheated in novel philosophical ideas. I am now drowned in a perfect-storm ocean of recent philosophical harangue, and I hope I can GET OUT of it as fast as possible.

I don't understand. I talk to intelligent Joe Schmuck of the outside world about the university and what I am trying to do for my research, and then I talk to a professor in the university and they just are so immersed in the language of their own discipline that they don't have that "think outside the box" and "take a step back" perspective that drives me nuts. So, what does that mean? It's best to balance the outside and the inside world. I just wished if professors took a mental break and took a step outside the university and tried to decipher it in its whole. *sigh*

All right. What happened, Vic. Calm down. She did a video log, to show her emotions. She did a "running with mirrors" thing: a reflection of herself on the computer screen with stars overlaying. She just wants to dream in her 8th continent.

What disturbed me today is Dr. Walker's high appraisal for a philosophical rant on A Perfect Storm and Brother Sun, Sister Moon that made close to no sense to anyone. People were leaving early. Alex and I were shaking our heads. It was referring to the work of philosophers, but it had no practical communication abilities in our everyday experiences. And afterwards, Dr. Walker said the lecture was "brilliant" and will "connect" with all the other upcoming lectures--"I see where you're going with this." Somehow, brilliance has two meanings. "Brilliance" can be defined as someone who is talking big words and strange phrases that no one else understands, and since the victim of this talk has low confidence and relatively assumes that he is stupid and that the lecture was "brilliant." And then there are few people (most particularly science writers, like Sarah Simpson, who state that "brilliance" is truly a person who is able to be creative and create new things and see the same system in new ways, and have the ability to communicate for people and that I left feeling... upset.

I think this class is a bit of a one-way street in terms of communication. Just rain down the information. And especially if the information is disorganized, it feels like it's raining down "bullshxt." Not to be mean or rude or anything to anyone, but this is how I feel emotionally. And how other students feel. Somehow, as Michael Hanrahan said in an email, somehow I seem to represent "The Silent Majority." Just keep writing, Vic, don't give up. But I can't blame them. Two back-to-back films Monday and Tuesday. Lecture on Wednesday, some audience input. And too many students in class, not to provoke meaningful conversation and connections with others. And even hard to have time to talk with profs either. But I can't blame them. I can't blame anyone for this. It's the system. The system gestalt of inhumanity we live in. It's like this environment as a whole is the way how it is because of intrinsic byproducts of ecological patterns and physics theory.

Though in the end, I did have the opportunity to talk to Sean and Alex (who's applying to USC Film production, already has an interview, wow, producer for a music video for the Old Souls, largely on his budget, whoa). All I do is bxtch-bxtch-bxtch. Do I have anything better to do? Well, you have problems? You bxtch about them. Don't leave them inside. That is BAD for your health. Like deathly to your health, your life.

So, today, put all this effort compiling all this information to Dr. Walker and what to say to her (she didn't know that Marion passed away, though I sent her an email). And I jogged very late around our neighborhood (a good half-hour jog, nice timing) being oblivious that I was far from UCSB. I had to call Nicole and we talked over the phone. I signed up for the first interview with Scott Bull. We briefly talked about meeting times. Dr. Walker thought I wasn't going to work on the project at all. My god, what lack of communication. I bet mostly or entirely my fault. I am just trying to stay in one piece here. Went to class, did a vlog, was 7 minutes late. Sat next to Alex the Old Souls music video producer. Missed receiving a couple of sheets of paper, which I then forgot to ask Dr. Walker for, and THEN? Dr. Salocky started talking... lecture... it was philosophy and how The Perfect Storm and Brother Sun, Sister Moon were similar. She talked about deep ecology, nature, sublime, aesthetic, harmony, subjectivity, objectivity, complexity, chaos, order, connectivity. Ugh. Words of questioning. Language issues. Ambiguous language. Okay, to get this straight, this is how I see it. When I read Kant's papers this morning, this is what I thought: something is "beautiful." It can be intrasubjective or intersubjective. It stimulates an emotional pleasure center, but that is about it. You don't think any further. Your cerebral cortex is non-operational. But if something is "sublime," that the system itself may be "beautiful" to stimulate the positive emotional center, but not only this, that this pleasure emotion opens the gateway of imagination and exploration and connection of the system, and its abstract concept of the system far beyond the system itself--extended in space and time and in imagination. *brain fart* shifting gears?

Kant (was this really written in 1790? Oh my godzeekybazooka). Kant said that systems that invoke negative emotion and fear are not sublime. Obviously, because fear suppresses and stifles creativity. Dr. Szaloky said that Brother Sun, Sister Moon was "aesthetic" but The Perfect Storm was "sublime." That, to me, was... well, I still don't get it.

The other thing I have to consider here is, when I am talking about films, is that there is this FILM TRIANGLE or POINT OF VIEW or FRAME OF REFERENCE ISSUE. "Mutual knowledge" issue that Dr. Steven Pinker talked about. There are several camps who have different perspectives and different knowledge regimes of the film itself, and it's very important to decipher from which frame of reference you are making your analyses.

So, here are the camps:
(1). The people who construct and produce the film in the first place.
(2). The people who are in the film. The artificiality and delusion of the system that the film creates. Boxing a system of Reality in space and time. Inside the spacetime of the story and the main characters of the story itself.
(3). The main character(s)' perception of the environment constructed within the movie.
(4). The audience, the outsider, the "intellectual spectator." I consider many film professors to be "intellectual spectators." Analysis through observation, not necessarily participation.

So, perhaps it's more of a "SQUARE" rather than a "TRIANGLE" of perception. Where would I like to be in this square? I have seen and experienced all four angles, quite recently through Blue Horizons, but from this square of frame of reference, in terms of analysis and construction of my theories, I work with point 3. In terms of understanding the "niche space" of Hollywood and the mental exercising of ancestral neurological programs no longer useful in our modern environment, that is me being from point 4. This is SO important to understand because I had this issue with talking to Dr. Walker today. Now you know. It's just like when asking Constance Penley about "agents" in Hollywood, and how they work. Now I know it's, well, talking about "agents" is a no-no question for Constance Penley. Don't ask again. In short, agents are middle men. They are like the "agents" in the Matrix. They have no purpose really, and they only exist because in a system of interdependence that becomes over-sized you have to invent overspecialized jobs that don't need to exist. Like being an agent. It's like a blood-sucking leech to the system. There are people who play valuable roles, and then there are those "extra people" or "leeches" who are responsible for gestalt "diminishing returns" of this system. Same for American pharmaceutical companies.

Now that I don't have to write 1.5 page respones to the journal articles (I wonder whether Nicole had a role in that), I guess I won't do that. I guess my focus is to continue my Biological Incorrectedness.

One last thought. I gave Dr. Walker copies of the film Flock of the Dodos, by Randy Olson. I knew of him retroactively from my own personal development, but it's the same line of reasoning. Not a film-making trying to understand science, but a scientist gone film-maker. And not only we portray and reflect upon the scientific byproducts itself, but we explore and even mock at the absurdity of the modern state of science! Scientists taking a step back and looking at the circus of scientists... We run to the social sciences for help. Maybe they'll take us in for a little while.... Scientists now dressing up and consulting with Hollywood movie stars. How amusing. Monopolization of "fame." Ugh.

I'll stop there. Need to put stuff away.... This computer is a frickin' mess!

key words: chaos of social theory, leaf-cutter ants, bryozoans, Dr. Janet Walker, Dr. Melinda Szaloky, ambiguous language, intrasubjective, intersubjective, sublime, aesthetic, film triangle, film square point of view, mutual knowledge, film-science-spanish-english, agents, leeches, Dr. Randy Olson, Flock of Dodos, Hollywood Ocean Night